Kanadehon Hamlet: a Play by Tsutsumi Harue Author(S): Faubion Bowers, David W

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Kanadehon Hamlet: A Play by Tsutsumi Harue Author(s): Faubion Bowers, David W. Griffith, Hori Mariko, Tsutsumi Harue Source: Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Autumn, 1998), pp. 181-229 Published by: University of Hawai'i Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1124123 . Accessed: 05/02/2011 16:48

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http://www.jstor.org KanadehonHamlet: A Play by Tsutsumi Harue Translated byFaubion Bowers with David W. Griffith and Hori Mariko Introduced by Tsutsumi Harue

In the spring of 1997, the editorof ATJ witnesseda productionof this play at New York'sLa MaMa E. T. C. and was immediatelyinterested in publishingit. Theplay is interestingon severallevels: it has a strongdramatic action, concernsan important problemin the transition ofJapanese dramafrom traditionalforms to modernones, revealsthe kind of seriousmisunderstandings that occurwhen culturescollide, allows for exciting 'fusion"scenes in whichShakespeare is producedkabuki-style, and brings to thestage several real-life kabuki figures, notablyMorita Kan 'yaXII, theprogressive Meiji-eraproducer. The playwrightalso makes an interestingcase for explaining Shakespeare'sHamlet to the kabuki companywhen, as suggestedby her title, she uses theJapanese classic Kanadehon Chushingura as a point of comparison. TsutsumiHarue is a doctoralstudent in East Asian languages and culturesat Indiana University.As a student of theatrehistory in the master'sdegree program at Osaka University,she studiedunder the distinguishedplaywright and scholarYama- zaki Masakazu.She was interestedin playwritingas wellas in the comparativenatures of traditional apaneseand Westerndrama. When she subsequentlymovedfromJapan to the UnitedStates she was promptedto focus on the clash betweenthe two cultures. Herfourfull-lengthplays areKanadehon Hamuretto (KanadehonHamlet), Roku- meikan Ibun (StrangeTales of the Rokumeikan),Tsukiji Hoterukan Enj6 (The Burning of the TsukijiHotel), and Seigeki Osero (Othelloin Japan), as well as two one-actplays. FaubionBowers, the chieftranslator, is one of the best-knownWestern authorities on Japanesetheatre. His booksinclude Japanese Theatre (1952) and Theatre in the East (1956).

KanadehonHamlet (Kanadehon Hamuretto) is a play about a troupe of nineteenth-century kabukiactors struggling to stage a strange foreign play called Hamlet.lIt was published in 1993 by Bungei Shunju together with the author's first play, RokumeikanIbun (Strange Tales of the Roku- meikan).2 Kanadehonrefers to one of the most famous and popular kabuki plays, Kanadehon Chushingura(The Treasury of Loyal Retain-

Asian TheatreJournal,vol. 15, no. 2 (Fall 1998). ? 1998 by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. 182 Tsutsumi ers), written in 1748 by Takeda Izumo, Miyoshi Shoraku, and Namiki Senryu.3 It was first produced in 1748 by the puppet theatre and almost immediately was adapted to the kabukistage. Based on an actual 1703 revenge on their master's enemy by forty-seven retainers, the play was the most commonly produced by kabukiin the Edo period (1600- 1868). It still captures the imagination of the Japanese populace as one of the best-known kabuki plays and is a source for numerous movies and TV programs. In KanadehonHamlet, Kanadehon Chushingura is presented as the prototype of kabuki-a melodrama full of noble samurai, passionate self-sacrificing beauties, and diabolical villains. Together with Hamlet, which represents Western drama, this play becomes a mirror reflecting the differences and similarities between Japanese and Western drama. Although Hamlet, a Shakespearean tragedy, and Chushingura,a kabukimelodrama, belong to two distinctively different genres, Kana- dehonHamlet's basic plot is developed on the assumption that Hamlet and Chushinguracould be produced by the same set of actors in the same company. As revenge plays, both Hamletand Chushingurahave an avenger-protagonist: Hamlet, princely son of the slain king, and Obo- shi Yuranosuke, chief retainer of Enya Hangan, a feudal lord forced to commit suicide for having drawn his sword and attacked an official within the palace precincts. Both avengers devise a means to conceal their true intent from the villains: Hamlet fakes madness whereas Yuranosuke pretends to indulge in geisha parties. The villains, Claud- ius and Kono Moronao, are both corrupt old men who are attracted to the victims' beautiful wives. Their attraction is one reason why the victims are killed or forced to commit suicide. Moreover, the plays' minor villains, Polonius and Ono Kudayui,bear striking similarities. They begin as retainers of the victims-Polonius of the former king and Kudayu of Enya Hangan-but after the deaths of the victims they side with the villains, Claudius and Moronao. Both are killed by the protagonists while hiding as spies: Polonius is stabbed by Hamlet while eavesdropping on his conversation with his mother; Kudayu is stabbed by Yuranosuke as he hides under the floor of a Kyoto teahouse, trying to read Yuranoske's confidential letter. Although the attempted production of Hamlet by a kabuki troupe is imaginary,4 Morita Kan'ya XII, the play's central figure and the producer who leads the troupe, is an actual figure (1846-1897).5 As a producer, Morita Kan'ya was extremely ingenious, innovative, and imaginative; he most certainly would have produced Shakespeare if he had ever had the chance. Kan'ya was born into a family that owned the Morita-za, one of Edo's three legitimate kabukitheatres, for over two hundred years. At the age of eighteen, he inherited the title of zamoto, KANADEHON HAMLET 183

the hereditary position of theatre manager. Not long after, in 1868, the Meiji Restoration took place and the social system that had supported kabukifor over two and a half centuries, under the Tokugawa shogunate, collapsed. Kan'ya tried his best to accommodate the Meiji government's new policy of vigorous westernization.6 He welcomed instructions from the government and tried to stage refined, histori- cally accurate plays in order to educate the public. Kan'ya designed his new theatre, the Shintomi-za, with great care. To attract audiences of "illustriousJapanese and foreigners," he installed chairs. He abolished the yagura, a drum tower built over the entrance to the theatre build- ings and highly respected as a traditional symbol of Tokugawa-era kabuki.Instead, Kan'ya installed gaslights both inside and out, mark- ing a revolutionary change in Japanese theatre, which previously had relied solely on sunlight whose intensity was regulated by the manipu- lation of special windows. Rapidly the Shintomi-za became the most prestigious theatre in Tokyo. Employing the best kabukiactors, including Ichikawa Danjuro IX and Onoe Kikugoro V, and working closely with the leading playwright, Kawatake Mokuami, Kan'ya established a golden epoch of Meiji kabuki. Kan'ya's production that stimulated the basic idea of Kanade- hon Hamlet took place in 1879, when his frantic attempt to westernize kabukireached its height. He staged an adaptation of an English play, Ningen Banji Kane no Yononaka(The Omnipresence of Money in Men's Affairs), based on Edward Bulwer-Lytton's Money.He also staged three operettas, La Grand-Duchessde Gerolsteinby Offenbach, TheDaughter of theRegiment by Donizetti, and La Fille de MadameAngot by A. C. Lecocq, all as plays-within-a-kabuki-playcalled HyoryuKidan SeiyoKabuki (The Wanderer's Strange Story: A Foreign Kabuki). The operettas were produced by a Western traveling troupe, but Japanese audiences did not react favorably to the unfamiliar Western acting style. Unable to toler- ate the prima donna's operatic singing, the audience laughed and hissed mercilessly whenever the poor soprano trilled her high notes.7 Eventually, financial difficulty forced Kan'ya to sell his Shintomi-za. He also had to give up his best actors, Danjuro and Kikugoro, who moved to the newly built Kabuki-za (1889). Nevertheless, Kan'ya was active as a producer until his death in 1897. Other historical figures among the characters in Kanadehon Hamletare Sawamura Gennosuke IV (1859-1936) and Okamoto Kido (1872-1939). Sawamura Gennosuke was a beautiful young onnagata who appeared in Kan'ya's productions until 1903, when he moved to koshibai,or small theatres, considered to be second- or third-class theatres in contrast to first-class theatres like the Shintomi-za. Eventually he became a star of the koshibaiby playing roles of evil women of the 184 Tsutsumi decadent nineteenth-century Edo period. Throughout his career, Gennosuke strove to preserve the quality of the Edo-period onnagata. Okamoto Kido (1872-1939) started his career as a drama critic for a newspaper. Later he became a playwright who developed shinkabuki, which combined the nostalgic mood of traditional kabukiwith modern elements of shingeki.8He is best known for the plays he wrote for Ichi- kawa Sadanji II: ShuzenjiMonogatari (Shuzenji Story) and Toribeyama Shinju (Love Suicide in Toribeyama). Although most other characters in KanadehonHamlet are imaginary, some were inspired by actual figures. The models for Takigawa Tokujiro and Takigawa Shich6 are Nakamura Shikan IV (1830-1899), one of the leading actors of the late Edo and early Meiji periods (1868-1912), and his adopted son, Nakamura Fukusuke IV, who eventually became the greatest onnagata of prewar kabuki,Nakamura Utae- mon V (1866-1940). The acting style and personality of Nakayama Umematsu are inspired by Onoe Matsusuke IV (1843-1928), who was considered the best supporting actor in the later Meiji period. Tome, an old stagehand at the Shintomi-za, with his hair in a topknot, is mod- eled after a legendary dresser who had a topknot and supported Onoe Kikugoro V throughout his life. KanadehonHamlet depicts Kan'ya's company during their last dress rehearsal. It is set in 1897, the year of Kan'ya's actual death, because, in the world of Meiji kabuki, Morita Kan'ya was himself a Hamlet, a prince who became a stranger in his own kingdom. With the advent of the Meiji Restoration, the government stopped persecuting kabukias a necessary evil and started to use it as a means of educating the public. Kan'yahad to adjust to these changes and, unlike the Prince of Denmark, he tried to take advantage of the situation by aggressively westernizing kabuki. In the process, Kan'ya became the one to draw the curtain on Edo kabuki,the kabukiof the "good old days," old-fashioned but more concerned with theatrical pleasure than educational reform. Therefore he was a Hamlet and, at the same time, a Claudius. In the play, Kan'ya tries to produce Hamlet by relying on younger actors, Ichikawa Shinzo and Takigawa Shicho, who are capable of adjusting themselves to the westernized acting style. By doing so, he is criticized by Gennosuke, who is faithful to the traditional kabukiof the late Edo period. Ironically it is the old-fashioned actors and the old stagehand still wearing his topknot who support Kan'ya in his financial crisis. In the middle of the rehearsal, it becomes apparent that the Shintomi-za has been secretly sold to a shrewd producer from Osaka, Horitani Bunjiro, a counterpart of Fortinbras. The play closes when Kan'ya collapses, speaking Hamlet's dying words: "Youthat look pale and tremble at this chance-the rest is silence." Kido's speech, "Good KANADEHON HAMLET 185

night, sweet prince... ," suggests this future playwright is Horatio, whose role would be to report Kan'ya's achievements to later generations. Although Kido accuses Kan'ya of blindly obeying the Meiji government's policy of westernization, he still considers Kan'ya to be a great producer, a hero who deserves a Hamlet's death. KanadehonHamlet was first produced in 1992. The second and third productions were held in 1994 and 1997. The 1997 production in Tokyo was followed by a tour to New York at La MaMa E.T.C., in association with Inter-Arts N.Y., led by Noriko Sengoku, andJUSPPA. All productions were presented by KiyamaTheatre Productions, led by Kiyama Kiyoshi, who originally commissioned the play. The director, Sueki Toshifumi, is from a shingeki(modern theatre) background but has worked with kabukiactors and is experienced in dealing with the two different acting styles. When he directed Yamazaki Masakazu's Zeami in 1987, he worked with a leading kabuki actor, Matsumoto Koshiro IX, who played the central character, Zeami Motokiyo, the great no actor-dramatist of the fourteenth century. He also directed Hamlettwice, in 1987 and 1989, casting a young kabukiactor, Ichikawa Somegoro VII (son of Koshiro IX), in the central role. During the rehearsal for the first production of KanadehonHamlet, Sueki began to assume a role similar to that of Kan'ya in the play. All the actors had a shingekibackground and many had played Shakespearean roles, but none had experience with kabuki. Those who had some knowledge and skill in traditionalJapanese dramatic forms, such as no and kyogen, were comfortable playing the roles of kabukiactors. Some of the oth- ers were uncomfortable mixing two acting styles, kabukiand shingeki. With the support of choreographer Nebuya Sh6zan, a master ofJapan- ese dance, Sueki gradually succeeded in transforming a group of modern actors into a nineteenth-century kabukitroupe. "The Murder of Gonzago," the play-within-a-play-within-a-rehearsal-within-a-play,was produced with kabuki-styleacting, costume, makeup, and music. Set designer Ishii Mitsuru, by building sajiki (gallery-style) seats around the stage and using part of them as a performing space for the actors, recaptured the atmosphere of an old kabukitheatre in which life on stage and life in the auditorium merged. His use of bright red lanterns framing the stage intensified the notion of theatre as a dream, empha- sizing the metatheatrical nature of the play. Critics were interested that the parallelism between the two masterpieces, Hamlet and Chushingura,was used to reflect differences between East and West. Takahashi Yasunari, a scholar of English liter- ature and translator of Lionel Abel's Metatheatre,pointed out that KanadehonHamlet is constructed in such a way that the two underlying plots-turning a Shakespearean drama into kabukiand vice versa- 186 Tsutsumi

are occasionally revealed (Takahashi 1992). An American critic, Deb- orah Jowitt, found it amusing that Shinzo, a young kabuki actor assum- ing the role of Hamlet, fails to get Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy right and finally turns the speech into a dance, complete with a kabuki-style mie (Jowitt 1997). At La MaMa, the audience's laughter reached its peak when an older kabuki actor, Umematsu, innocently suggests that they should omit the soliloquy altogether (Osasa 1997; Iwanami 1997). Matsuoka Kazuko states: "The audience at La MaMa gave this ... extraordinary marriage ... between Kanadehon and Ham- let their blessing" (Matsuoka 1997). Hamlet, one of the most famous plays in the world, has been a constant source for parodies and adaptations in the West. Likewise, Japanese playwrights continue to create new versions of Chushingura, not only for kabuki9 and shingeki,10 but for movies and TV as well. Kanadehon Hamlet is unique in that it joins these two traditions. By doing so, it bridges two distinctively different styles of drama and, in turn, the two cultures from which they were born.

KANADEHON HAMLET

CAST

Actors in the company ICHIKAWA SHINZO (Narita-ya)ll /HAMLET NAKAJIMA HANJURO (Nakajima-ya)/GHOST TAKIGAWA TOKUJIRO (Horai-ya)/CLAUDIUS SAWAMURA GENNOSUKE (Kinokuni-ya)/HORATIO NAKAYAMA UMEMATSU (Izumi-ya)/POLONIUS YOSHIZAWA KAKO (Yoshizawa-ya)/GERTRUDE TAKIGAWA SHICHO (Waka-Horai)/OPHELIA PLAYERS, actors in HAMLET s "play-within-a-play" Other characters MORITA KAN'YA, a theatre manager/producer MIYAUCHI REINOJO, a baron who serves as HAMLET 's director OLD TOME, an old stagehand OKAMOTO KIDO, a journalist/drama critic CLERK, an employeeof Nishigami, a loan shark HORITANI BUNJIRO, a producerfrom Osaka ACT 1

(On the dark stage a spotlight picks up ICHIKAWA SHINZO/HAMLET and NAKAJIMA HANJURO/GHOST, who enterfrom the right, the latter KANADEHON HAMLET 187

leading the way. SHINZO/HAMLET 'Scropped hair is slicked back and he wears a frock coat with trousers and shoes. He carries a Japanese sword, a kabuki prop, in his hand. He holds the sword out cautiously, as if keeping HANJURO/GHOST at bay. All the movement and speeches in this and subsequent scenesfrom HAMLET reflectkabuki conventions. Thus HAN- JURO/GHOST moves with the sliding steps typical of kabuki spectres.His whitish costume resemblesthat worn by ENYA HANGAN in the seppuku scene of Chushingura-that is, hakama trousers, kimono, and kataginu winged vest. His wig's topknot has been undone and the hair hangs to his shoulders. Eerie music of drums and flutes is heard.) (See Color Plate 2.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: Whither wilt thou lead me? Speak, I'll go no further. HANJURO/GHOST: Mark me. SHINZO/HAMLET: I will. HANJURO/GHOST: My hour is almost come. When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames Must render up myself. SHINZO/HAMLET: Poor ghost. HANJURO/ GHOST: Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

SHINZO/HAMLET: Speak, I am bound to hear. HANJURO/GHOST: So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. SHINZO/HAMLET: What? HANJURO/GHOST: I am thy father's spirit, Doomed for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confined to sleep in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part, And each particular hair to stand an end Like quills upon the fretful porcupine. List, 0 list! If thou didst ever thy dear father love- 188 Tsutsumi

SHINZO/HAMLET: 0 God! HANJURO/GHOST: Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder. SHINZO/HAMLET: Murder! HANJURO/ GHOST: Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

SHINZO/HAMLET: Haste me to know't, that I with wings as swift As meditation or the thought of love, May sweep to my revenge.

HANJURO/GHOST: I find thee apt, And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf, Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear. 'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard, A serpent stung me- But know, thou noble youth, The serpent that did sting thy father's life Now wears his crown.

SHINZO/HAMLET: My uncle! HANJURO/ GHOST: Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,- So to seduce!-won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming-virtuous queen. O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!

(Eeriedrums and flute are heard again, fading out at the end of this speech.)

But soft, methinks I scent the morning air. Brief let me be. Sleeping within my orchard, My custom always of the afternoon, Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial, And in the porches of mine ears did pour The leperous distilment whose effect Holds such an enmity with blood of man That swift as quicksilver it courses through The natural gates and alleys of the body; So did it mine, KANADEHON HAMLET 189

And a most instant tetter bark'd about, Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, All my smooth body. SHINZO/HAMLET: 0 horrible! HANJURO /GHOST: If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not. Let not the royal bed of Denmark be A couch for luxury and damned incest. But howsoever thou pursuest this act, Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive Against thy mother aught. Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once! The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire. Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remember me.

(Exit HANJUR/ GHOST upstage center.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else? And shall I couple hell? Hold, hold, my heart; And you, my sinews, grow not instant old, But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee! Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe. Remember thee! Yea, from the tablet of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records, All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past That youth and observation copied there, And thy commandment all alone shall live Within the book and volume of my brain, Unmixed with baser matter. Yes, by heaven! O most pernicious woman! O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain! Now to my word; I have sworn't.

(As SHINZO/HAMLET concludes he strikes a mie pose to the crack of wooden clappers. The stage suddenly lights up to reveal the interior of the Shintomi-za in Tokyo, June 1897. The stage for the Shintomi-za is surrounded by sajiki-style seats for the audience. A red felt curtain with gold letters, donated by General Grant, ex-president of the United States, covers half of the set. Ever since its founding in 1872, the Shintomi-za had been 190 Tsutsumi

most fashionable; now it is in ruinous condition through age and lack of financial support. Though an attempt is made to conceal this deterioration, basins and bucketsfor collecting rainwater leaking from the roof reveal the true condition of the theatre. The Chinese charactersfor Shintomi-za, usu- ally lighted by gas, which MORITA KAN'YA was proud of, cannot be eas- ily seen, as they are no longer lighted. Baron MIYAUCHI REINOJO, thirty- five, who looks wealthy in his fashionable European suit and shiny leather shoes, walks nervously about the stage. ICHIKAWA SHINZO/HAMLET, thirty-five, and NAKAJIMA HANJURO/GHOST, forty, kneel respectfully infront ofMIYAUCHI. TAKIGAWA TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS, an actor of sixty-two, is a man of fine appearance, looking as if he stepped out of a woodblockprint of the Edo period. Wearing a bowlerand cloak over an ill- fitting suit, he sits awkwardly on a "throne"set on a raised upstage platform. SAWAMURA GENNOSUKE, thirty-eight, in a smart-looking suit, remains a spectator with a sardonic smile. NAKAYAMA UMEMATSU, fifty-one, dressed in black,formal Japanese attire of kimono and hakama, sits on the stage, his face turned away but his eyes sharply on SHINZO/ HAMLET and MIYAUCHI. TAKIGAWA SHICHO/OPHELIA, onnagata, twenty-seven, dressed in a sparkling white gown of Victorian style and a pink ribbon on his wig, stands close to SHINZO/HAMLET with a certain feminine charm, as if he were a real lady. YOSHIZAWA KAKO, seventy, an onnagata, sits hidden in a prop palanquin upstage left.)

MIYAUCHI: (Bitterly.) What in God's name? Tomorrow at last, for the first time in our country, we put on Shakespeare's masterpiece, Hamlet. Today's rehearsal is vital. Why on earth those costumes? SHINZO: Sorry, Baron. MIYAUCHI: Shinzo! I had your costume-black velvet doublet, black fur cloak, silver sword-just like the famous Hamlet actor Edwin Booth I saw in America-I had it copied for today's rehearsal. SHINZO: Yesterday it was delivered, but ... MIYAUCHI: At least you're in Western clothes, as befits the head of the troupe. Hanjur6! Your role is a king's ghost. Where's your European armor and helmet for God's sake? You're like something out of the past! HANJURO: They are death clothes for Chushingura, Act 4, Lord Enya Hangan's seppuku scene ... MIYAUCHI: Chushingura? SHINZO: Baron, our troupe has been touring since spring in Chushin- gura. I was Yuranosuke. Hanjur6 played two handsome roles, Enya Hangan and Kampei. HANJURO: Enya Hangan, lord of the clan, was provoked by Moronao into violating protocol and unsheathing his sword inside the palace KANADEHON HAMLET 191

and is ordered to commit seppuku. As he dies he tells his chief retainer, Yuranosuke, to take revenge. In Hamlet's Act 1, the King of Denmark's ghost makes his son Hamlet swear revenge. Aren't they more or less the same? MIYAUCHI: How dare you compare old-fashioned Chushingura with Shakespeare's masterpiece! HANJURO: I came to the dressing room today in my only Western clothes, but they didn't feel right. So when I saw the suicide clothes of Enya Hangan I'm used to in the wardrobe, I realized how similar the roles are. MIYAUCHI: How can we rehearse sacred Shakespeare in costumes from an outmoded play? Go change! (HANJURO rises and exits right.) Claudius! Where's your king's cloak? Lord Chamberlain Polonius! Where's your costume? What on earth ... UMEMATSU: The Chushingura costumes are all in the dressing rooms ... MIYAUCHI: We are not putting on Chushingura, that relic of the past. Hamlet is new theatre, being put on for the first time in "new" Japan. While I was in America I saw the great actor, Edwin Booth,

FIGURE 6. "HANJURO: Aren't they more or less the same?" Left to right: Shi- cho (Isogai Makoto), Hanjuro (Murakami Hiroshi), Tokujiro (Kubo K6ichi), Shinzo (Fujiki Takashi). KanadehonHamlet, 1994, Tokyo Globe-za. (All pho- tos courtesy of Kiyama Theatre Productions) 192 Tsutsumi

at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in his last performance of his finest role, Hamlet. Ever since, I've dreamed of Hamlet here. I got Waseda University Professor Tsubouchi Shoyo to translate it mag- nificently. And the number one owner/actor/manager of the Shin- tomi-za, Morita Kan'ya, is producing it. Tomorrow's Hamletwill be the most memorable event in Japan's theatre history.... Only Shi- cho is properly costumed. Where's our Gertrude, Takinojo? SHICHO: I had old Tome, our chief stagehand, go to Kiyotaki-ya(Taki- nojo)'s house. He'll be back soon. GENNOSUKE: I thought Narita-ya Shinzo was the head of our troupe. Shicho, when did you take over? SHICHO: I'm new to the troupe, of course, for Hamlet. I came early with my father, Tokujiro, because I'm not used to Western clothes. I needed to get used to my costume. There was a message that Kiyo- taki-ya (Takinojo) had withdrawn as Queen. Narita-ya (Shinzo) was busy going over Hamlet's lines. Morita Kan'ya was at home ill. So the baron asked me to send someone to Kiyotaki-ya.I sent old Tome. This was natural ... wasn't it? MIYAUCHI: Claudius! ... Tokujiro! Your makeup! Why have you plas- tered your face? TOKUJIRO: Kabuki villains all make up this way. MIYAUCHI: True, King Claudius is an evil man, but in this Castle Scene he hides his true nature. He's noble. A kabukistereotype of a villain is different. TOKUJIRO: But in Chushingura, Moronao must be seen as evil from Act 1. Otherwise why would Enya Hangan draw his sword? MIYAUCHI: Nonsense, Tokujiro! You're not playing Moronao in Chu- shingura! SHICHO: Baron, forgive my father. Tomorrow I'll do his makeup. It'll be more natural for Western theatre. MIYAUCHI: Shicho, all actors in our new theatre should be like you. You're the only one. But the rest of the troupe ...

(HANJURO returnsfrom the dressing room, right, wearing an odd combi- nation of Western andJapanese clothing. He has removed his wig but still has the silk cloth covering his scalp to representa shaved pate. MIYAUCHI, speechlesswith dismay, turns to UMEMATSU.)

MIYAUCHI: Umematsu! Polonius is chamberlain to the King of Den- mark. He can't be in Japanese hakama. Change into something Western. UMEMATSU: Never in all my born days have I worn Western clothes. MIYAUCHI: Borrow from someone. KANADEHON HAMLET 193

UMEMATSU: I don't feel like playing a Westerner. I am not playing Lord Chamberlain. I am playing Kudayu-old adviser to Enya Han- gan-and today we are rehearsing Chushingura.If you didn't know, the correct dress for a runthrough is hakamaand haoriwith family crest. MIYAUCHI: Must I repeat? This is not stale Chushingura! UMEMATSU: You don't like it? I was happy to come to this Shintomi-za to play Chushingura,invited by the great and distinguished Morita Kan'ya. I've done Kudayuion tour many times in lesser theatres, telling myself one day I'll perform it in Tokyo. I thought my life's dream had come true, but when I got here I found we're doing Ham ... something, and I was to be not an old samurai adviser but a Western chamberlain. Imagine how upset I was! SHINZO: Umematsu, don't be bullheaded. We've played Chushingura in the sticks. Now in the big city we do Hamlet in a classy theatre. You said you would. You can't let me down at this late hour. UMEMATSU: Narita-ya (Shinzo), at the script reading Master Morita Kan'ya told me out of the blue that he was doing a Western play. I was surprised, thinking it a big mistake. But then I thought, "No," Morita is the master showman with something up his sleeve. He got President Grant of the U.S. and the prince of Germany to visit the Shintomi-za. He even put together on stage a Western actor and Danjuro IX. He's cozy with things Western, like wasabi and sashimi needing each other. I figured he was having a new brain- storm, so I said "I leave it to you." I came today, but no Morita. Instead, only this rascal I do not know! HANJURO: He's... UMEMATSU: Fresh back from America. Baron Miyauchi. An aristocrat ... from a well-known family. A theatrical reformer. In the world of theatre, you could call him "ice cream." GENNOSUKE: Umematsu, have you ever tasted ice cream? UMEMATSU: Yes. Twenty years ago when President Grant on a good- will world tour attended a special performance, Master Morita Kan'ya ordered ice cream from the foreign enclave in Yokohama. I was invited to eat some. MIYAUCHI: Ice cream in Western civilized nations is an after-dinner dessert. Only once, twenty years ago, you had it. So what do you know? UMEMATSU: Your theatrical reforms will melt away,just like ice cream. SHINZO: Izumi-ya (Umematsu), Baron Miyauchi has studied new theatre in the United States, home of advanced theatre, for two years. He's chosen Shakespeare's Hamlet, best of the West, forJapan. It's a first forJapan. Daring, isn't it? 194 Tsutsumi

UMEMATSU: Narita-ya, your Yuranosuke in Chushingura-learned from the great Danjuro IX-amazed me. How powerful you were as the leader of the forty-seven samurai! Compared to Yuranosuke, this Hamlet in frock coat is like a street vendor hawking "bread." TOKUJIRO: Right you are! (Does a rhythmical song and dance with hisfan. GENNOSUKE beats time on a large drum.) "Bread, bread, bread. Behold... hot and crusty. Taste civilization! Lengthen life! It's something new, new, new!"12 SHINZO: You insult me! Instead of this frock coat, if only I were wearing a real costume for Hamlet... UMEMATSU: No matter how your prince dresses, he'll always look like a piece of bread. SHINZO: You go too far!

(Actors converge as they argue but disperse and kneel, bowing formally, when MORITA KAN'YA enters. He is a soft-spoken person of fifty-one years, dressed in a fine Western suit, but his sharp eyes belie that he is a gentleman.)

KAN'YA: Shinzo, Umematsu. Enough. MIYAUCHI: Morita, what's going on? Nothing's ready for rehearsal! No costumes. No props. KAN'YA: Sorry. As always, the Shintomi-za can never get a perfect set of costumes ready. Baron, I'm also sorry I'm late for this rehearsal. UMEMATSU: I heard you were sick. All right now? KAN'YA: It was nothing....Just getting old. Who put that curtain there? MIYAUCHI: The set is supposed to be Elsinor Castle ... not something shabby. I can still see the Brooklyn Academy of Music decor: a New York facade, dark walls, blazing tapestry. Here in backward Japan, we can't equal it. But as it was, the stage looked more like a prison than a palace. SHINZO: The baron asked if we could cover the wall. I remembered this curtain and told old Tome to put it up. KAN'YA: Well, if the baron ordered it. But remember, the American President Grant gave me this curtain when he came to the Shinto- mi-za to see kabuki. He was pleased. There's no other like it in Japan. Be careful with it. SHINZO: I've cautioned everyone. MIYAUCHI: Morita, where's Gertrude? KAN'YA: Takinojo, our lead onnagata, is difficult. At the readthrough he was fine, but the minute I'm gone, he gets on his high horse. Don't worry, Baron. I'll handle him. MIYAUCHI: Another thing. These old-fashioned actors aren't making KANADEHON HAMLET 195

any effort to understand Shakespeare's grandeur. They rattle on about Chushingura,Kudayu. At this rate, it's impossible for me to direct Hamlet. UMEMATSU: Hooray! Now that Morita Kan'ya is here, tomorrow we'll do Chushingura! Baron, have you ever seen Chushingura? MIYAUCHI: I've never set foot in kabuki. UMEMATSU: Your beloved Shakespeare may be grand abroad, but he'll never succeed here. In Japan, actors inherit their roles in Chushingura from father to son for generations. MIYAUCHI: No wonderJapanese theatre is primitive, vulgar. GENNOSUKE: (Coming between them.) Vulgar? Primitive? I'll show you! (Moves to center and kneels as, while talking, he rapidly mimes Hangan's movements in the famous seppuku scene.) Ten years ago the emperor and empress came to see the stars of Tokyo in Chushingura.It was the fourth act, where Lord Enya Hangan commits seppuku. Kiku- goro V sat in deathly pale kimono. "Officials!Attest to my death." And he stabbed himself. UMEMATSU: (Moving like Yuranosuke, as if entering on the hanamichi, and reenacting Yuranosuke's encounter with the dying Hangan.) As soon as the hanamichi curtain opened, Danjuro IX ran down the path- way to the stage.... "Yuranosuke has come." GENNOSUKE: "Is it you? How I've waited for you." UMEMATSU: "I am only grateful to see you yet alive." KAN'YA: Izumi-ya (Umematsu)! Grow up! UMEMATSU: Sir. Ever since that command performance, you have been called the "Shogun of the Theatre." You have managed actors all over Tokyo in one new astonishment after another. We have followed you blindly. It's now ten years since. What are you planning now? Why do we need to listen to someone who knows nothing about theatre ... this Fish Baron? MIYAUCHI: Fish! UMEMATSU: (Adapting the goading lines of Moronao in Chushingura and gesturing with his fan.) Do not take offense! Hear me out! The fish swam in the West for a year or two and thought it paradise. Back in Japan, all is not to his liking. The fish lost his way... swam hither, thither... bumping his fish-nose on the sides of the little pool. Finally, his pride snaps... he dies. Fish, fish, Fish Baron! KAN'YA: Umematsu! Stop the mockery! Your Kudayi is good enough for our Shintomi-za. But in this age of enlightenment we can't wal- low in the same old ruts, giving Tokyo audiences Chushinguraagain and again. Now that we won the war in China, all Japan sees the advantages of the West. Put a Western name on anything and it sells. The world changes; theatre changes. 196 Tsutsumi

(Enter TOME,an old stagehand,from the right, wearingshabby knickers overhis kimono.His gray hair is fashioned in a topknot.)

TOME: Master, I'm late. KAN'YA: Old Tome. Thank you for your trouble.

(MIYAUCHI is amazedto see thepersonification of theantiquated kabuki in this shabbyold man.)

MIYAUCHI: Morita, who's this with a topknot? KAN'YA: Shintomi-za's chief stagehand. He's important. MIYAUCHI: In this bastion of new theatre-center of theatrical refor- mation-such a relic still exists after thirty years of Meiji modern- ization? TOME: (Grinning.) Everyone in the theatre world knows me and my old-fashioned hair. When the government ordered men to cut their long hair, Horai-ya (Tokujiro) and I didn't- KAN'YA: (Breaks in.) Tome, where's Kiyotaki-ya (Takinojo), our Queen? Backstage? TOME: Kiyotaki-yais at home. MIYAUCHI: What! TOME: He says he won't come. KAN'YA: He has to play Gertrude. TOME: He thought he was to be in Chushingura as Lady Kaoyo. But it was changed to some "Western"play. KAN'YA: (Angrily.) Nothing changed. It was always my plan. GENNOSUKE: Oh, great theatre schemer! KAN'YA: Shut up, Kinokuni-ya (Gennosuke)! GENNOSUKE: Why do you complicate everything? Morita Kan'ya, twelfth generation of actor-managers, all Tokyo knows you favor things Western. UMEMATSU: You don't drink sake now, only beer, saying sake is unhealthy. No more soy sauce, you now take sashimiwith salt. KAN'YA: You're observant. You noticed? GENNOSUKE: You cook up Western novelties to be popular. Ever since you founded the Shintomi-za twenty-five years ago, that's been your emphasis. I know Hamlet is a masterpiece by a great writer from Great Britain, home of civilization. What I don't get is why you put the sign for Chushingura on top of the announcement for Hamlet. MIYAUCHI: Yes, why? Hamlet's premiere must be announced. I'm puz- zled, too. KAKO: (Entersfrom thepalanquin, theflap of whichis suddenlytossed aside KANADEHON HAMLET 197

by a stage assistant. He walks with a staff, carriesa roundfan, and is dressedin a blueand whitecheckerboard-pattern kimono.) Master Morita is as clever at publicity as he is at secrecy. He's something up his sleeve. KAN'YA: Kako! Why are you here? KAKO: I was supposed to play Okaya, Okaru's mother, in Chushingura. But everything turned into Hamlet. How odd. I stayed to peek at a Western play. Why did Takinojo turn down the Queen's role? TOME: He doesn't want to be a woman with two husbands. MIYAUCHI: What? TOME: Enya Hangan's wife, Lady Kaoyo, is chaste. She ignores Moro- nao's advances. After her husband commits seppuku she cuts off her hair. But this Queen Ge ... Ge ... Ge ... KAKO: Gertrude. TOME: Whatever-marries her brother-in-law two months after her husband's death. She connives against her own son. She's a bitch. KAN'YA: By play's end she comes to her senses. I told him. TOME: But she doesn't plan her own suicide. She accidentally drinks poison. The role is not appropriate for a star onnagata. He says that if he played her, his fans would desert him. SHINZO: Tomorrow is the opening. Kiyotaki-ya is our leading onnagata. It's unforgivable! TOME: He also says there's no sex in playing Yuranosuke's mother! MIYAUCHI: Gertrude is Hamlet's mother! SHINZO: What he means is in Chushingura I always played Yuranosuke, and Kiyotaki-ya doesn't want to be my mother. GENNOSUKE: Kiyotaki-ya in Chushingura plays two roles, Lady Kaoyo, Enya's wife, and Honz6's wife Tonase. I, as a young onnagata, play two roles too. When Chushinguraturned into HamletI assumed I'd be Princess Ophelia. But Master Morita cast me as Horatio. For an onnagata to play Hamlet's buddy is queer, don't you think? KAN'YA: Kinokuni-ya (Gennosuke), when programs change, roles change. Look at Nakajima-ya (Hanjuro). He gave up two handsome roles, Enya Hangan and Kampei, to be one ghost. He's not bitch- ing! HANJURO: Even with my Osaka accent, Master Morita accepted me into Tokyo. I can't complain. GENNOSUKE: I'm upset at being bypassed. I am the troupe's young onnagata. An actor from our rival Kabuki-za is Ophelia. SHINZO: Who's up there in the balcony? TOME: Ill go see. KAN'YA: It might be Horitani's spy. (To HANJURO:) You go with Tome. HANJURO: Ye s. 198 Tsutsumi

(Exit TOME and HANJURO, running, into audience.)

MIYAUCHI: Morita,who's Horitani? KAN'YA: Some squirt from Osaka. Nobody to fret about. GENNOSUKE: He recently signed up some young kabukistars. He's a power in Osaka. KAN'YA: Big in Osaka where there's no competition. UMEMATSU: Why would he come to the Shintomi-za? KAN'YA: He holds a weak opinion of our worth. So much for him. TOKUJIRO: My muscles ache from sitting in a chair. KAN'YA: We can't start rehearsing without Kiyotaki-ya. Be patient. He sees roles in his own way. He won't back down. SHINZO: So we postpone tomorrow's opening? KAN'YA: We can't. Hamletopens tomorrow, no matter what. SHINZO: Without a leading onnagata?Who can be Queen? KAN'YA: I just don't know.

(TOKUJIRO, sighing, takesoff his hat, revealinga topknot.)

MIYAUCHI: (Disgusted.)The King of Denmark in Japan's first Hamlet has a feudal souvenir on his head. KAN'YA: Horai-ya (Tokujiro), you promised to cut your hair. TOKUJIRO: I did, but this morning I went to the barber and ran into an old man who used to dress topknots. Such men are retired. We just looked at each other and sighed. I came away uncut. UMEMATSU: That's why you kept your hat on. KAN'YA: Samurai-long hair has been forbidden for twenty-five years. TOKUJIRO: I had my hair like this thirty years before the law. I can't stop now. SHINZO: Waka-Horai (Shicho). You're his son.... Do something. SHICHO: My father's set in his ways. If he wears a crown the audience won't notice. Let him keep it. MIYAUCHI: Impossible! When Hamlet stabs Claudius, the crown might fall off. The King of Denmark with a samurai hairdo. Pre- posterous. The premiere will be ruined. UMEMATSU: Baron Ice Cream! Your Hamlet's melting away drop by drop. KAKO: That's awful of you! From the beginning you've been pouring hot water on ice cream. You're to blame for Polonius becoming Kudayi and for Claudius' old-style hair. And no Gertrude. I came to see a Western play rehearsed. But... KAN'YA: Yoshizawa-ya (Kak6). In Chushingura, at Kampei's house, you're Okaya, Okaru's mother. Could you play a queen? KANADEHON HAMLET 199

GENNOSUKE: But in Chushingura, Okaya is an old peasant woman in a village. A far cry from Queen of Denmark. KAN'YA: Yes, but Okaya is Okaru's mother. Gertrude is Hamlet's mother. Think this way, and they're the same. MIYAUCHI: I object. Just how old are you, Kako? KAKO: I was born in 1839. UMEMATSU: That makes you fifty-nine, only seven years older than me? Not bloody likely. KAKO: Who says so? SHINZO: I heard you were born in 1827. KAKO: Tactless! Any onnagata can be as young as he wishes. SHINZO: But twelve years younger is a bit much. KAN'YA: At seventy you're only eight years older than Horai-ya (Toku- jiro), our Claudius. MIYAUCHI: I object. Gertrude is young and attractive. That's why Claudius murders his brother. KAN'YA: But Gertrude is Claudius' older sister-in-law. She could be eight years older than he. Gertrude's first husband is killed by his younger brother. In Chushingura Okaya's husband is killed by young Sadakuro. Gertrude and Okaya both have their husbands murdered by younger men, and both sons get murdered, too. Now, Kako, the part's yours! KAKO: I never thought I'd be a Western queen. Before Meiji, I'd be beheaded for even thinking such. KAN'YA: Sit on the throne. You'll be prompted. KAKO: No need. I read the text three times. Easy to memorize when the words are so unusual. (Walks upstage unsteadily, contrary to his glib manner.) GENNOSUKE: Do queens teeter-totter like that? KAKO: Just you watch what this old queen can do!

(KAKO straightens up, though a little crudely, puts on a formal outer robe [uchikake] and changes into a dignified queen, progressing grandly up to the throne in haughty kabuki fashion.)

SHINZO: Magnificent. KAKO: Izumi-ya (Umematsu), stop being stubborn. UMEMATSU: I don't want to be in a Western play. I'm going home. SHINZO: We can't do without Polonius. GENNOSUKE: And Claudius has a topknot!

(TOME and HANJURO enter from the audience, bringing OKAMOTO KIDO along with them. KIDO, twenty-five, is drama critic and journalist 200 Tsutsumi

for the Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun newspaper.Wearing a finely pat- ternedhaori jacket over his kimono, he is an educatedyoung gentleman borninto a family offormershogunate retainers.)

KIDO: The day before opening anyone is allowed to watch from the third balcony-as a real Edo man, Morita Kan'ya knows. KAN'YA: Who are you? KIDO: Okamoto Kido. I write the theatre column in the T6kyoNichini- chi Shinbun. KAN'YA: I've seen your name. KIDO: I'm honored. KAN'YA: You wrote: "Recent Shintomi-za stagings by Morita Kan'ya lack the vitality of past productions. After his command performance of a decade ago, and subsequent hobnobbing with government officials and business bigwigs, he has lost his devotion to theatre." KIDO: Oh, dear. KAN'YA: You're too young to have seen my early Shintomi-za productions. KIDO: My father used to take me to Danjuro's dressing room and backstage here at the Shintomi-za. Old Tome would give me cakes and Western candies. Out front I'd get sleepy. MIYAUCHI: This is the first step toward modern theatre in Japan-a Shakespearean masterpiece, Hamlet,an epoch-making rehearsal. It is not an ordinary rehearsal. Leave at once! KIDO: You must be the distinguished Baron Miyauchi, just back from America. But where is a rehearsal? So far, all you've done is bicker. KAN'YA: Write what you want in the newspaper. Just go! KIDO: (Speaksfrom audiencearea belowraised stage at right. UMEMATSU, kneeling,is alone at center,with otherson peripheryof stage.) First, may I speak to Umematsu? Umematsu-san, because he's a foreigner, you're hostile to Polonius. But he's no different from your Kudayu in Chushingura.Polonius is chamberlain to Hamlet's father. Then after the king's murder, Polonius curries favor with the enemy, Claudius. Just as in Chushingura,Kudayui fawns over Moronao and becomes his spy. UMEMATSU: Indeed, in Chushingura,Kudayu is the old adviser serving Lord Enya Hangan. And after the lord's seppuku, he switches sides to the enemy Moronao. He's a "soldier serving under two flags." KIDO: Polonius and Kudayu both have hotblooded sons, Laertes and Sadakuro. Laertes is better than the thief-murderer Sadakuro. You see? UMEMATSU: Yes. KANADEHON HAMLET 201

FIGURE 7. "KIDO:First, may I speak to Umematsu?" Left to right:Player (Mori Genjiro), Player (Kikuchi Akitomo), Kido (Uchida Ryuma), Player (Teshi- gawara Takeshi), Shicho (Isogai Makoto), Shinzo (Fujiki Takashi), Tokujiro (Kubo Koichi), Gennosuke (Ueda Shun), Kak6 (Sakamoto Nagatoshi), Umematsu (Hayashi Akio). KanadehonHamlet, 1994, Tokyo Globe-za.

KIDO: Kudayu in Chushingura, Act 7, hides under the floor, sneakily reads Yuranosuke's letter plotting revenge, and is stabbed through the tatami. Polonius hides behind the arras in the Queen's bed- room to eavesdrop on Hamlet and the Queen. Hamlet stabs him. Each was going to betray the hero in each play. Think of Hamlet as a rewrite of Chushingura ... MIYAUCHI: What rot! KIDO: Umematsu-san, your role is called Polonius, but it's really Kudayu! UMEMATSU: Master Morita, I don't feel like playing a foreigner. But if you call me Kudayu, I'll be in your Hamlet. MIYAUCHI: Impossible. It's ridiculous to put a role from Chushingura into Hamlet! KAN'YA: No, it's all right. Cast! Umematsu is not Polonius but Kudayii. Okay? Hanjuro, give your trousers to Umematsu.

(HANJURO, crying at the loss of his trousers, is hastened off at right.) 202 Tsutsumi

KAN'YA: (Privately.) Baron, don't worry. Umematsu's notorious for fussing. Call him Kudayu during rehearsal; he'll save face. Other- wise, you won't have a Polonius. Umematsu's more westernized than you think. He's had a Western lunch every day in his dressing room. MIYAUCHI: Western lunch? KAN'YA: Tomorrow, at last, Denmark will have a lord chamberlain. Okamoto (Kido)-san, I owe you one. KIDO: The only repayment I ask is to see the rehearsal. At last I'm seeing theatre the way the Shintomi-za used to be. UMEMATSU: (Now wearing trousers instead of hakama, but still in kimono.) Can someone help me with these Western buttons? KAN'YA: Buttons won't bite your fingers. UMEMATSU: Someone, do help me. KAN'YA: Kinokuni-ya (Gennosuke), help him. You're alwaysparading yourself around in fancy Western suits. Horai-ya (Tokujiro), undo your topknot. Baron, Hamlet is set in ancient Denmark when people didn't have short hair. MIYAUCHI: Yes,but...

(SHICHO undoes TOKUJIRO s topknot, letting his long, silver hair stream to his shoulders.)

KAN'YA: (Putting a hat on TOKUJIRO.) With a crown, he looks a little like a king. MIYAUCHI: Suit yourself! SHICHO: Father, all right now? TOKUJIRO: (Pleased.) Yes. SHINZO: At last, the cast's ready. Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. A room of state in Elsinor Castle. MIYAUCHI: (As actors take theirplaces.) King Claudius, on your throne. Gertrude, raise your head. Your crown will fall off. Hamlet, sit away from the throne. Show your profile. Polonius, go next to Claudius. Polonius!

(UMEMATSU pretends not to hear.)

KAN'YA: Kudayu, stand next to Claudius. UMEMATSU: Yes, Master. MIYAUCHI: Ready. Action. TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: (In an unexpectedly eloquent rhythm, although a stage assistant prompts him soto voce.) Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death KANADEHON HAMLET 203

The memory be green, and that it us befitted To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom To be contracted in one brow of woe, Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen, Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state, Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,- With an auspicious and a dropping eye, With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage, Taken to wife; nor have we herein barr'd Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone With this affair along. For all, our thanks. But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son-

SHINZO/HAMLET: (Aside.) A little more than kin, and less than kind. TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: How is it that the clouds still hang on you? SHINZO/HAMLET: Not so, my lord, I am too much in the sun. KAKO/GERTRUDE: (Also old-fashioned, but dignified.) Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off, And let thine eye look like a friend of Denmark.

FIGURE 8. "TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death..." Left to right: Shicho (Isogai Makoto), Gennosuke (Ueda Shun), Shinzo (Fujiki Takashi), Umematsu (Hayashi Akio), Tokujiro (Kubo Koichi). KanadehonHamlet, 1994, Tokyo Globe-za. 204 Tsutsumi

Do not for ever with thy veiled lids Seek for thy noble father in the dust. Thou know'st 'tis common. All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.

(Strikes staff on ground to emphasizefinal line.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: Ay, madam, it is common. KAKO/GERTRUDE: If it be, Why seems it so particular with thee?

(During thefollowing speech, MIYAUCHI adjusts the positions of the other actors.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not "seems." 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, modes, shows, of grief, That can denote me truly. These indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

(KIDO and TOME discuss something in the audience, while MIYAUCHI restlessly walks among the actors, making a nuisance of himself, trying to improve their form. HANJURO sits alone in a corner of the stage, while KAN'YA gazes at the stage from the audience. GENNOSUKE approaches SHICHO standing at the downstage edge of the stage.)

GENNOSUKE: Waka-Horai (Shicho), what're you looking at so intently? SHICHO: Shinzo's Hamlet's classy. Like a real Danish prince. GENNOSUKE: So great a Yuranosuke actor is wasted on Hamlet. Shinzo should be playing Yuranosuke in a big Tokyo theatre. Here we are finally in the big time on the Shintomi-za's first-class stage, and in a Western play... SHICHO: Kinokuni-ya (Gennosuke), you're caught up with your dreary little theatre on the wrong side of town. Playing illogical vulgar old- fashioned kabuki over and over again. KANADEHON HAMLET 205

GENNOSUKE: Ten years ago when I left the Shintomi-za I knew I was best suited for what you call the illogical and vulgar. SHICHO: If we only act in plays of bloodshed and erotic love, actors will always be outcasts. We are blessed in the Meiji era. Fine men are thinking of educating the masses by means of theatre. Danjuro IX was the first but now we too are being accepted. Our duty is to respond by performing more refined plays, more suitable to the new era. GENNOSUKE: Even if refined plays come into fashion, we can't change ourselves. Audiences who come on foot to parks don't want "to be educated." SHICHO: Narita-ya (Shinzo) belonged to Danjuro's troupe but drifted away from Tokyo. As a new actor he can succeed. He must play this Western prince in grand style.

(KAN'YA, noticing the argument,nonchalantly breaks in.)

KAN'YA: Kinokuni-ya (Gennosuke), I asked Waka-Horai (Shicho) to play Ophelia. You'd be beautiful in a Western gown, I know; but you're too sexy to be a lord chamberlain's daughter. GENNOSUKE: Are you removing courtesans and geishas from the stage and putting princesses in their place? KAN'YA: You're perfect in erotic roles... in love scenes... but look at my curtain given by a president of the United States. My Shin- tomi-za is the only theatre in the world with such a thing. Our theatres used to be called "sin spots" and "dens of iniquity" but I raised the level of kabuki.Influenced by the West, we made a new theatre, more logical, more human. SHICHO: Thanks to Western influences, we actors could show our art to the emperor. Ten years ago, you were Okaru at that command performance, Kinokuni-ya (Gennosuke). Don't you understand? GENNOSUKE:(Shouting.) Master Morita, you invited famous people and foreigners to see your plays. You built the Shintomi-za in West- ern style. You became a westernized gentleman, but we think of you as our old master from the olden days, although you've erased those days from the Shintomi-za. SHICHO: If you can't forget that past, how can you understand the new? GENNOSUKE:I don't care if it's new or old and vulgar or refined, Ijust want us to do "theatrical theatre." (Turns sharplyaway, leaving the othertwo.) KAKO/GERTRUDE: (Resuminghis kabuki -esquemanner.) I pray thee stay with us, go not back to school in Wittenberg. SHINZO/HAMLET: I shall in all my best obey you, madam. 206 Tsutsumi

TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply. Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come. This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet Sits smiling to my heart; in grace whereof, No jocund health that Denmark drinks today But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell, And the King's rouse the heaven shall bruit again, Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

(Company moves off in kabuki style upstage right to the increasingly rapid beating of wooden clappers.)

KAN'YA: Gennosuke is a fine actor, but he's caught up in old-style histrionics. In Chushingura he's a wonderful Okaru, but he'd be hopeless as Ophelia. Shicho, after Hamlet I plan on staging more and more Western plays. I want Shinzo as leading man, and I want you opposite him. That was my intention in getting you, a favorite of Danjuro IX, away from the Kabuki-za, to be our Ophelia. Dan- juro and Kikugoro are old. You and Shinzo will be the stars in Japan's future theatre. My eye is unerring.

(Beating of a large drum begins slowly, gradually acceleratesduring thefollowing. Only SHICHO and KAN'YA are onstage. SHICHO speaks to KAN'YA as he passes him.)

SHICHO: Have you talked to Shinzo? KAN'YA: Yes. Tomorrow, at last, Hamlet's premiere. For the first time in Japan a Western drama here. Until then, I await your favorable answer.

(SHICHO leaves. Spotlight picks out SHINZO 'sface, then fades to black.)

ACT 2 (At the crack of wooden clappers, the lights come up to reveal a rehearsal in progress of Hamlet. Act 2, Scene 2, a room in Elsinore Castle. Many more tubs and buckets are sitting about the stage than in Act 1. SHINZO/ HAMLET wears his frock coat with his left shoulder bared, revealing his white shirt. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS has put on hakama again.)

UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: My lord, I have news to tell you. KANADEHON HAMLET 207

SHINZO/HAMLET: (Moving about bizarrely, beforesitting on his haunches, center.)My lord, I have news to tell you. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: The actors are come hither, my lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: BUZZ, BUZZ. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: Upon my honor- SHINZO/HAMLET: Then came each actor on his ass- UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: (Speaks in rhythmic kabuki fashion, using his closedfan for emphatic gestures.) The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical- pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ, and the liberty, these are the only men. SHINZO/HAMLET: You are welcome, masters. Welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends.

(To the sound of a drum beating, the PLAYERS in Hamlet enter from right. They wear kimonos and basket hats that hide theirfaces. They move into a line downstage, facing upstage on their knees, and remain silent.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time; after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: My lord, I will use them according to their desert. SHINZO/HAMLET: God's bodykins, man, much better. Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: Come, sirs. SHINZO/HAMLET: Follow him, friends. We'll hear a play tomorrow.

(Following UMEMATSU/POLONIUS, all the players exit except FIRST PLAYER, who removes his basket hat.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: Dost thou hear me, old friend? Can you play "The Murder of Gonzago"? FIRST PLAYER: Ay, my lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: We'll ha't tomorrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in't, could you not? FIRST PLAYER: Ay, my lord. 208 Tsutsumi

FIGURE 9. "SHINZO/HAMLET: Follow him, friends." Left to right: Umematsu (Hayashi Akio), Shinzo (Fujiki Takashi), with Players downstage. Kanadehon Hamlet, 1994, Tokyo Globe-za.

SHINZO/HAMLET: Very well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.

(Exit the FIRST PLAYER right. One of the PLAYERS enters, passing him, removes his basket hat, and addresses KAN' YA, who is seated just below the stage, at right. The man, dressedin a formal kimono and haori and hold- ing a small bag in his hand, is a clerk at Nishigami's, a moneylender.He kneels deferentially at center stage. The otherprincipal actors mill around upstage, observing with interest.)

KAN'YA: The loan shark's clerk! CLERK: I had to see you, but I'd have been turned away so I disguised myself as an actor. KAN'YA: I'm busy rehearsing. CLERK: Today's interest is thirty-seven yen and eighty-three sen. My boss says to come back with the money. KAN'YA: I paid yesterday's interest. Today I can't pay. After tomorrow's premiere, money will roll in! It looks like a hit. CLERK: I can't go back empty-handed. You paid yesterday by pawning costumes and props. KANADEHON HAMLET 209

MIYAUCHI: What? KAN'YA: Baron, I'm ashamed. Definitely I'll redeem everything tomorrow. CLERK: You still have something. That evening gown will take care of today. MIYAUCHI: Stop! I bought that dress in France for my wife. Shicho is only borrowing it for Hamlet. Impossible to pawn it. CLERK: Then pay the loan's interest. KAN'YA: I've no money, I said. CLERK: Morita-san, you're our best customer. You don't pay back the loan but you always pay the interest. You mean to spoil your credit rating? MIYAUCHI: Morita, why is a common little usurer pestering you? KAN'YA: Baron, I am mortified. For the sake of Hamlet, for new theatre in Japan, would you kindly pay today's interest? MIYAUCHI: I've misjudged you. I said I'd pay for Hamlet's Japanese debut so I could direct. You've pawned my costumes and props that I designed, and now you have the gall to ask me to cover your debts! Impossible. KAN'YA: What's wrong with debts? No big production is possible without them. My father taught me to write promissory notes before he taught me my ABC. I built this theatre, the Shintomi-za, on debts. I borrowed to invite dignitaries from here and abroad, including President Grant, to performances. I produced plays on debts. Pil- ing debts one on top of the other gave me great fame. CLERK: You said "General Grant?"I'll take that curtain. KAN'YA: No, you won't. It's the souvenir of my lifetime. CLERK: Hock it, and for three to five days, I won't dun you. KAN'YA: For my ideals, I've pawned everything. But Grant's curtain? ... Not even for Hamlet. UMEMATSU:"Neither a borrower nor lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry." KAKO: You know Chamberlain Po ... Polo's-speech. Interested in Western theatre, after all? KAN'YA: Polonius is right. All a man has left is reputation. Gennosuke, you left me for a little theatre in the poor part of town. Danjuro and Kikugoro, whom I helped, deserted for the Kabuki-za. And now I don't even own my Shintomi-za. SHINZO: (Prostrating himself before MIYAUCHI.) Baron, I beg you. Please help us. If today's interest isn't paid, we can't open. I must play Hamlet somehow! MIYAUCHI: No! I wash my hands of Hamlet! No costumes. No props. Polonius, a feudal retainer. Gertrude, an old farmer woman. Claud- 210 Tsutsumi

ius has a samurai hairdo. I can't go on. AJapanese Hamlethas been a mistake from the beginning. It's too premature. SHINZO: (To CLERK.) At least, let us continue rehearsing. It was going well. CLERK: Only if I get my money. GENNOSUKE: Why not stay here, see the opening, then go back? CLERK: Tokyo knows moneylender Nishigami well! Don't try to sucker him. The Shintomi-za may be important, but it's been put up as collateral. My boss can buy it from Mr. Chiba any old time! SHINZO: (Rushing up right to the curtain.) Master Morita, for Hamlet's sake, pawn the curtain! KAN'YA: I can't part with it any more than I can part with myself. UMEMATSU: (Becomes KUDAYU in Act 7 of Chfishingura.) "Great success allows small failures. Good men can't worry about criticism for borrowing money to make great theatre. I have faith in you, sir." SHINZO: And you were such trouble about being Kudayu. UMEMATSU: I'll pay the interest.

(UMEMATSU, taking a kneeling position, withdraws a rolled-up white clothfrom his kimono, lays it on thefloor as he unrolls it, and removesfrom it a purse. He removes a number of bills and pays off the CLERK.)

KAN'YA: And everyone calls you stingy. UMEMATSU: What they say is I'm rich ... but I'm not really. KAN'YA: Umematsu, I owe you. UMEMATSU: It's no loan. I don't expect it back. CLERK: You're paid up, Morita-san. See you!

(The CLERK exits right. SHINZO prostrates himself gratefully beforeUME- MATSU. SHICHO does likewise and GENNOSUKE, crouching at UME- MATSU 'S side, offers his thanks as well.)

KAN'YA: I'm embarrassed. (Looking not in the least embarrassed.) But everything turned out all right.

(MIYAUCHI doesn't think everything turned out all right.)

MIYAUCHI: (Standing with KAN'YA in the space in front of the stage.) Morita, I didn't know you were such a famous borrower. What are all these pans? The roof leaks, does it? What if it rains tomorrow? KAN'YA: Baron, don't worry. On Shintomi-za openings, it never rains. ... Not once since I opened in 1872. Now... get on with the rehearsal! KANADEHON HAMLET 211

(TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS, KAKO/GERTRUDE, UMEMATSU/POLONIUS, and SHICHO/OPHELIA take positions at center stage. After the crack of wooden clappers, TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS speaks.)

TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Sweet Gertrude, leave us too, For we have secretly sent for Hamlet hither, That he, as 'twere by accident, may here Affront Ophelia. Polonius... SHICHO: (Whispering.) Father, Kudayii! TOKUJIRO: (In grand kabuki style.) Hail, Kudayu, thee and mineself! UMEMATSU: Call me Polonius. I've been an old fool. TOKUJIRO: Why didn't you say so sooner? KAN'YA: Start from Polonius. TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Her father and myself, lawful espials, Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen, We may of their encounter franklyjudge And gather by him, as he is behaved, If't be the affliction of his love or no, That thus he suffers for.

KAKO/GERTRUDE: I shall obey you. And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish That your good beauties be the happy cause Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again, To both your honors. SHICHO/OPHELIA: Madam, I wish it may. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious so please you, We will bestow ourselves. Read on this book; That show of such an exercise may color Your loneliness... I hear him coming. Let's withdraw, my lord. KIDO: (From a position near the stage at left.) Kako-san, first Japanese "Queen." It's as if you're at it for ten years. KAKO: If I were ten years younger, I'd seduce not just Claudius but Hamlet and Polonius too! KIDO: And Horatio? KAKO: No, he has the hots for Hamlet. 212 Tsutsumi

(Exit TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS and UMEMATSU/POLONIUS. Enter SHINZO/HAMLET.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: (Wearinga cloak, its top buttonclosed at the throat,he deliversthese lines awkwardly.) To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing, end them? To die ... to sleep, No more ...

MIYAUCHI: This is god-awful. This is Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. Give it inner feeling ... make it live. SHINZO/HAMLET: (Even moreawkwardly.) To be or not to be? That is the question-? KAN'YA: Narita-ya, your long solos are famous. Modulate your voice. SHINZO: But in kabuki, declamations are punctuated with wood clappers and turn into dance... become theatrical. MIYAUCHI: You still don't get modern theatre. It's not stereotyped stylization. It's innermost heart and feelings. I'm sick of telling you. SHINZO: Truth to tell, I don't understand "heart," "feelings." What's Hamlet thinking anyway? MIYAUCHI: What? SHINZO: Hamlet sees his father's ghost... swears revenge. Why does he talk at length about suicide and what happens after death? TOKUJIRO: Yes. Chuishingura's loyal Yuranosuke, after his lord's seppuku, has an undivided mind to kill Moronao. He doesn't shilly- shally about whether to be or not to be. MIYAUCHI: Hamlet is not Yuranosuke! The Tokugawa shogunate top- pled thirty years ago. It's 1897 now and Japanese theatre is still in the Dark Ages ... still caught in Chushingura. KAN'YA: Horai-ya, Chushinguratalk is taboo, unless you want your topknot chopped off. TOKUJIRO: Let me keep my hair. KAN'YA: Baron, Shinzo is a fine actor for modern theatre. Please inter- pret Hamlet's "heart"for him somehow. SHINZO: At the Shintomi-za, Hamlet's a do-or-die role for me. Baron! MIYAUCHI: I understand ... Shinzo. Hamlet is not really thinking of killing himself. He's pondering life and death... the power of imagination versus the power of action. He's engrossed in the phi- losophy of life. KAKO: Why philosophize? Just avenge. KANADEHON HAMLET 213

FIGURE10. "SHINZO:At the Shintomi-za, Hamlet's a do-or-die role for me." Left to right:Kan'ya (Kobayashi Katsuya), Gennosuke (Kaneda Akio), Ume- matsu (Hayashi Akio), Shinzo (Fujiki Takashi), Miyauchi (Kataoka Hiroki), Shicho (Isogai Makoto). KanadehonHamlet, 1992, Haiyu-za, Tokyo.

UMEMATSU: Betterjust skip the soliloquy. Go straight to the sex scene with the girl. It's clearer that way. MIYAUCHI: Omit "To be or not to be"? Not on your life! Hamlet is Shakespeare's most wonderful play. It's his most beautiful speech. Hamlet is finished. My dream for a Japanese performance is over! KAN'YA: (To KAKO and UMEMATSU.) Keep quiet. Baron, please wait! (Kneels beforeMIYAUCHI in the space beforethe stage.) Remember what you said when we first met. I can't forget. You said: "Western theatre always has a director ... over the actors. If Japan were a stage, the director'd be emperor, guiding the actors from the clouds to the right, to the left. The stage becomes the director's world." When I heard this, my eyes opened. Japanese theatre hasn't caught up with the West yet, because we haven't a single director. You were in New York for two years, seeing every kind of theatre. You're Japan's first "new" theatre director. For the sake of theatrical reform, for the sake ofJapan, don't give up on us. Move Shinzo as you'd like. Give him the movements of Hamlet. 214 Tsutsumi

MIYAUCHI: Very well. Shinz6, this is your last chance. Even if you can't internalize Hamlet, imitate him. Here's how American Edwin Booth played him in New York, the greatest Hamlet ever! Try to copy, hand and foot, will you? SHINZO: (Bowing, head to floor, with great deference.)Yes.

(MIYAUCHI goes to center stage and stands alongside SHINZO/HAM- LET.)

MIYAUCHI: Hamlet enters stage right .. (SHINZO/HAMLET quickly goes there and tries to duplicate MIYAUCHI'Sinstructions but cannot help moving in what, in this context, seems a comically grotesque kabuki style.)... Bows his head a little. Right hand on his chest. Left hand ... on chin ... slowly drags his feet ... sits down and looks at audience.... (MIYAUCHI cannot refrain from playing the role of HAMLET himself, getting into the skin of Booth's HAMLET.) No! ... Booth's Hamlet sees nothing. He's looking inside himself-he's melan- choly. Your eyes aren't sad at all. Hand on forehead... a lock of hair falls over his brow.... He doesn't notice. ... He rises up from depths of silence. (In English:) "To be or not to be, that is the question." (MIYAUCHI is dumbfounded to find he is neither in America nor with Booth.) SHINZO/HAMLET: (In kabuki style.) To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing, end them. (Exaggerated mie pose.)

(MIYAUCHI, with bowedhead, is about to leave the stage. SHICHO rushes to stop him.)

KAN'YA: Baron. SHINZO: Don't go. MIYAUCHI: Have that dress sent to my residence. SHINZO: Let me try once more. MIYAUCHI: This is Japan. Far from America and Europe. Exchange forgiveness with me, Morita. My failure come not upon thee, nor thine on me!

(MIYAUCHI leaves right. SHINZO collapses in despair. GENNOSUKE helps SHINZO get to his feet.) KANADEHON HAMLET 215

GENNOSUKE: "Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." SHINZO: Quit it. It's no time to joke. GENNOSUKE: I'm not. Why don't we keep on rehearsing? KAN'YA: It's all over. Baron Miyauchi was our backer. Without him there's no money, no play. The curtain has drawn on my life's greatest gamble. KIDO: Not just yet. The premiere's tomorrow. If it's a smash, you'll block Horitani's takeover. KAKO: Horitani who? KIDO: An Osaka producer. He's trying to break into Tokyo. TOKUJIRO: Nonsense. Since Tokugawa times there've been twelve Morita Kan'yas. He won't let anyone from Osaka touch him. KAN'YA: Alas, I'm not the Morita Kan'ya of those days when you were a great star. UMEMATSU: Ten years ago the Shintomi-za was put up as collateral for a loan from moneylender Chiba. KIDO: Chiba is rich, but he knows nothing about theatre. He left the management of the Shintomi-za to Morita-san. Now he's fed up with his losses, won't put up a dime for a new production. They say he's thinking of selling the Shintomi-za. GENNOSUKE: So that's why Hamlet wasn't announced and Chushin- gura was! UMEMATSU: Before Hamlet's a hit, Horitani would like to snap up the Shintomi-za for its debts. So that was Master Morita's battle plan. KAN'YA: As we're about to open, we were on the roof, and someone took the ladder away. SHINZO: If only I'd said my lines better. SHICHO: So, "new" theatre and Hamlet were just fish bait. Master Morita planned on catching us young actors the way the Kabuki-za lured Danjuro and Kikugoro away from him. We're pawns! Father! Let's go home. (Moves right to exit.) KAKO/GERTRUDE: Ophelia! Wait. The play is not over yet. King, come hither. Sit here beside me. TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Gertrude, I do your bidding. SHICHO: Father! KAKO: No actor worth his name quits at a rehearsal. Ophelia's fair face would fade away to no avail. (As GERTRUDE:) Sweets to the sweet, Farewell. I'd hoped thou shouldst have been Hamlet's wife. I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid, And not have strewed thy grave. 216 Tsutsumi

TOKUJIRO: Yoshizawa-ya,they can't bury this young Ophelia yet. KAKO: Sorry, King. TOKUJIRO: (To SHICHO.) Son! For thine especial safety which we do tender, we dearly grieve. If you leave this Shintomi-za, I'll have no choice but to disown you. SHICHO: Father, the baron has deserted Hamlet. There's no hope of opening, so why rehearse? TOKUJIRO: Because the king commands it. SHICHO: "Claudius" has possessed you. KAKO/GERTRUDE: Forsooth, my king! TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Gertrude. Prithee.

(The two old actorspose primly as the King and Queen. The woodenclap- pers are struckslowly, then morerapidly as thepair movesregally toward the throneplatform.)

KIDO: Morita-san, I sneaked into the Shintomi-za not just to see the baron's Western novelty, but because I wanted to see your kind of "true"theatre. Danjuro and Kikugoro deserted you for the Kabuki- za, but you've still got Shinzo, Gennosuke, Umematsu, Kako... splendid artists all. And instead of old kabukiplays, you have Shake- speare's masterpiece, Hamlet.You have always spun your plays like a spider's web in sunlight... shimmering, colorful. That is why I hope one day to write plays myself. GENNOSUKE: If only we had money to redeem costumes and props from the hock shop. UMEMATSU: Why look at me? KAN'YA: Never mind. Old Tome! Take down that curtain. TOME: Shogun Grant's curtain? KAN'YA: Ex-President Grant will forgive me. He's saving Hamlet. TOME: Yes, sir. (Reluctantlytakes the curtain down.) KAN'YA: Back to work! Narita-ya, take it from your soliloquy. SHINZO: (Longpause as he triesto begin, only to collapsefrom nervousness. He is hysterical with fear.) I can't move my arms and legs. Hamlet is beyond me. KAN'YA: (Soothingly.)No, it isn't. Remember your Yuranosuke, Chu- shingura, Act 7, the scene in the teahouse, and your rave reviews? (See Color Plate 3.) GENNOSUKE: Where you acted Yuranosuke, hid your vow of revenge against Moronao, and pretended to carouse crazily in the pleasure district. You surpassed Danjuro. SHINZO: Stop. He might hear you. KAN'YA: You plunged into lust, outside; inside your gut, you thought of revenge. KANADEHON HAMLET 217

SHINZO: Yuranosuke is not wood and stone. On one side, he's sworn to revenge; on the other, he whores like mad. KAN'YA: That's it! Take Yuranosuke as a model for Hamlet's soliloquy. SHINZO: Model? KAN'YA: Yuranosuke and Hamlet both hide their plans for revenge. They are "actors."Yuranosuke pretends he's whoring... Hamlet fakes madness in front of Claudius. TOKUJIRO: Wow! So the Englishman Shakespeare, after reading Chu- shingura, wrote Hamlet? UMEMATSU: Shakespeare could have readJapanese. KAN'YA: Yuranosuke and Hamlet. What's at the bottom of their hearts? The Enya Hangan clan and Denmark were torn apart by events. Resentment against the enemy and revenge became a two- headed snake within their souls. Yuranosuke plunges into debauchery so as to hoodwink Moronao's spies. He becomes an actor who can't step out of his role. At the same time he can't forget revenge. Yuranosuke never speaks what's at the bottom of his heart, but you expressed it cleverly in your acting. SHINZO: Yes. KAN'YA: Yuranosuke's surrounded by women, but Hamlet is alone during his soliloquy. He steps out of his play-acting, being crazy in front of Claudius, and speaks what he deeply feels. He speaks not only for Hamlet but for every one of us who puts one foot in front of the other to walk and who stops to wonder why we go on living. Why do we "grunt and sweat under a weary life. But that the dread of something after death"? Same with me. For "new" theatre and the Shintomi-za, I have suffered patronization from backers, been shamed by loan sharks, insulted by the public and the critics. I have wanted to sink into sleep . .. but I'd still dream of theatre. So the soliloquy speaks for Hamlet's soul. But not just his. It speaks for Yuranosuke, for me, for Shinzo, and tomorrow he'll be speaking for all the audience's souls too! Everyone's soul. (See Color Plate 4.)

(The stage slowly darkens with spotlights on KAN'YA and SHINZO/ HAMLET. SHINZO/HAMLET walks to the front of the stage and softly speaks. His manner is still that of the kabuki actor, but his delivery is deeply sincere and clearlyfocused. Low, rapid drumbeats accompany it.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 218 Tsutsumi

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.

(Blackout while SHINZO/HAMLET S lines go on. When the lights come up again, it is Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, a room in Elsinore Castle. SHINZO/HAMLET stands at center and the FIRST PLAYER kneels nearby. SHINZO/HAMLET holds his cloak in his hand.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier spoke my lines. Pray you avoid it. FIRST PLAYER: I warrant. SHINZO/HAMLET: Be not too tame neither, but let your own discre- tion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the words to the action. FIRST PLAYER: I warrant. SHINZO/HAMLET: Go, make you ready.

(Exit the FIRST PLAYER right. Enter UMEMATSU/POLONIUS to the center.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: How now, my lord? Will the king hear this piece of work? UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: And the queen too, and that presently. SHINZO/HAMLET: Bid the players make haste. KAN'YA: What's that shadow over there? UMEMATSU: Nothing.... Your eyes fool you. The moneylender's clerk has gone. Those men there are actors for Hamlet's play-within-a- play.

(The beating of the clappers is heard throughout this exchange, along with the low sound of a flute.)

KAN'YA: The play before the king.... For a moment my eyes dimmed. The emperor and empress were here, like ten years ago. Ghosts, shadows from the past. UMEMATSU: Are you all right? ... Why not go out and have a beef- steak for a change? ... That's my cue! KANADEHON HAMLET 219

(During the lastfew lines, a red clothhas beenplaced on thefloor, center stage,flanked by two small standing lamps.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: What ho, Horatio! GENNOSUKE/HORATIO: Here, sweet lord, at your service. SHINZO/HAMLET: Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man As e'er my conversation cop'd withal. GENNOSUKE/HORATIO: O my dear lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: Nay, do not think I flatter, For what advancement may I hope from thee That no revenue hast but thy good spirits To feed and clothe thee?

(SHINZO/HAMLET and GENNOSUKE/HORATIO unconsciouslyspeak togethermore as loversthan intimatefriends. SHICHO pretendsnot to see this, but he is much bothered.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: There is a play tonight before the king. One scene of it comes near the circumstance Which I have told thee of my father's death. I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot, Even with the very comment of thy soul Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt Do not itself unkennel in one speech, It is a damned ghost that we have seen, And my imaginations are as foul As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note, For I mine eyes will rivet to his face, And after we will both our judgements join In censure of his seeming.

GENNOSUKE/HORATIO: Well, my lord. If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft. SHINZO/HAMLET: They are coming to the play. I must be idle. Get you a place.

(EnterTOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS, KAKO/GERTRUDE, UMEMATSU/POLO- NIUS and SHICHO/OPHELIA.) 220 Tsutsumi

TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: How fares our cousin Hamlet? SHINZO/HAMLET: (Pretendingto be mad.) Excellent, i'faith, of the cha- meleon's dish. I eat the air, promise-crammed. You cannot feed capons so. TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: I have nothing with this answer. These words are not mine. SHINZO/HAMLET: No, nor mine now.... (To UMEMATSU/POLO- NIUS:) My lord, you played once i'the university, you say? UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor. SHINZO/HAMLET: What did you enact? UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: I did enact Kudayui. I was killed in Act 7, the teahouse scene. Yuranosuke killed me. SHINZO: No! Your line is, "I did enactJulius Caesar. Brutus killed me." UMEMATSU: Who'sJulius? Who's Caesar?Tokyo audiences don't know them. But everyone knows my famous role. KAN'YA: I give up. Old spectators naturally prefer Kudayu. Change it. UMEMATSU: Narita-ya, once again. SHINZO/HAMLET: And what did you enact? UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: (Puts on Kudayu'sspectacles and unrolls a long cloth in place of a long, scrolledletter.) I did enact Kudayi. In Act 7, the teahouse scene, Yuranosuke killed me. SHINZO/HAMLET: You mean "Iranosuke," your life isn't necessary? Be the players ready? UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: Good. They stay upon your patience. KAKO/GERTRUDE: Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me. SHINZO/HAMLET: No, good mother, here's metal more attractive. (Goes next to SHICHO/OPHELIA.) Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

(SHINZO/HAMLET lies downon SHICHO/OPHELIA'S lap. GENNO- SUKE looksat it disgustedly.)

SHICHO/OPHELIA: No, my lord. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: (Aside to TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS.) 0 ho! Do you mark that? SHINZO/HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap. SHICHO/OPHELIA: Ay, my lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters? SHICHO/OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. SHICHO/OPHELIA: What is, my lord? SHINZO/HAMLET: Nothing. SHICHO/OPHELIA: You are merry, my lord. KANADEHON HAMLET 221

SHINZO/HAMLET: Who, I? SHICHO/OPHELIA: Ay, my lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks and my father died within's two hours. SHICHO/OPHELIA: Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord. SHINZO/HAMLET: So long? O heavens, die two months ago and not forgotten yet! Then there's hope a great man's memory may out- live his life half a year.

(Enterfromright a PLAYERwearingformal kataginu vest and kimono. He kneelsand bowsformallyabove the red carpet.)

PLAYER: For us and for our tragedy, Here stooping to your clemency, We beg your hearing patiently.

FIGURE 11. "SHINZO/HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?"Left to right: Shi- cho (Isogai Makoto), Shinzo (Fujiki Takashi). KanadehonHamlet, 1994, Tokyo Globe-za. 222 Tsutsumi

(KAN'YA casuallywalks up to GENNOSUKE, who is irritatedto see SHI- CHO acting as OPHELIA, therole he wanted,in the lovescene with HAM- LET.)

KAN'YA: (As if half-speakingto himself.)Kinokuni-ya, remember? At the command performance I decided on you as the Shintomi-za's next leading onnagata. GENNOSUKE: (Sound of drumsandflute in the background.)I was making up as Okaru, when I well understood how noble and elegant you had made theatre-worthy of refined spectators. But still, I knew I would wander elsewhere. KAN'YA: Gennosuke. GENNOSUKE: I left you because theatrical theatre vanished from the Shintomi-za stage. KAN'YA: That command performance was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Emperor in full dress. Empress in a gorgeous white gown. Foreign Minister Inoue, and other members of the imperial family, minis- ters, wives, proceeding to the Grand Circle.

(The PLAYERS of thedumbshow enter slowly from right. The costumesand makeupof the King and Queensuggest the Heian period,as in The Tale of Genji. That of the murderer,LUCIANUS, is morekabuki-like, with his glistening brocaderobe, wide hakama, and kumadori makeup. Using kabuki movements,they enact "TheMurder of Gonzago"as KAN'YA, lookingaway from the stage behindhim, speaks.)

KAN'YA: That day I was at the curtain. Chushingura,Act 4, Enya Han- gan's seppuku scene. Danjuro IX, as Yuranosuke, stood at the end of the hanamichi, eyes closed as if praying. Center stage in pale death clothes, Kikugoro V prepared to stab himself.

(The audienceclearly hears with KAN'YA the amplifiedvoice of a gidayu narrator and speechfrom the actors in the commandperformance in KAN'YA's imagination,Act 4 of Chushingura, in which YURANOSUKE runs to the place where ENYA HANGAN is committing seppuku.)

NARRATOR: Holds the sword upside down and thrusts with his left hand.

(The swishingsound of a hanamichi curtain opening.)

NARRATOR: Oboshi Yuranosuke, opening the sliding door from the KANADEHON HAMLET 223

corridor, runs into the room and prostrates himself before his master at the moment he sees him.

(The sound of beating footsteps as YURANOSUKE runs along the hanamichi towardthe stage.)

YURANOSUKE (VOICE): Oboshi Yuranosuke hasjust arrived. LORD ENYA (VOICE): Oh, is that you, Yuranosuke? YURANOSUKE (VOICE): At your service. LORD ENYA (VOICE): How I've waited.

(The villain, LUCIANUS, enters.)

GENNOSUKE: (Pointing to LUCIANUS.) Master Morita. That's you! SHINZO/HAMLET: This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. He poisons the king to usurp the throne. GENNOSUKE: You killed theatrical theatre. Maybe it is vulgar, but audiences have loved it for centuries. You killed it to toady to big shots, gentlemen fresh back from the West. You drank Western wines with them. You were a Master of Theatre but you killed the old theatre with your innovations. SHICHO/OPHELIA: Look, the king rises. SHINZO/HAMLET: What? Frightened with false fire? KAKO/GERTRUDE: Lights, lights. UMEMATSU/POLONIUS: Give o'er the play!

(KAN'YA falls with his hand over his chest.)

TOKUJIRO/CLAUDIUS: Give me some light. Away!

(Exit TOKUJIRO, supported by people, while KAN'YA is carried to a sajiki. Music becomeslouder and the colorof the lightschanges, bathing the stage in blue.)

SHINZO/HAMLET: (Oblivious ofKAN'YA'S condition.)0 good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive? Upon the talk of the poisoning? GENNOSUKE/HORATIO: I did very well note him. SHINZO/HAMLET: Ah ha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders! For if the King like not the comedy, 224 Tsutsumi

Why then belike, he likes it not, perdy. Come, some music.

(HORITANI BUNJIRO enters.A man of thirty,he wearsa fine Western suit not appropriatefor him. He speaks with a strong Osaka accent. SHINZO/HAMLET continuesto performhis Shakespeareanrole for several lines.)

HORITANI: May I have a word? SHINZO/HAMLET: Sir, a whole history. HORITANI: I wish to see Morita Kan'ya.... He's at today's rehearsal. SHINZO: (Lights back to normal.) I'm head of the troupe, Ichikawa Shinzo. We are very busy... HORITANI: I know outsiders are not allowed, but I'm special. Where's Morita? SHINZO: He'll see you after the rehearsal. Please wait. HORITANI: The Shintomi-za owner does not wait. I am Horitani Bun- jiro from Osaka. I have just now bought the Shintomi-za from Chiba. SHICHO: So, the rumor's true.

(KAN'YA enters,patiently enduring his pain.)

KAN'YA: We met three years ago in Kyoto. HORITANI: That time you bested me. Now it's my turn. Here's the deed transferring ownership of the Shintomi-za to me. KAN'YA: I never thought you could raise that much money. HORITANI: Tomorrow, your Western innovation Hamlet might be a success and I was afraid Chiba might change his mind about selling the Shintomi-za. So I hastened to buy it today. UMEMATSU: Master Morita? KAN'YA: Sorry, you paid the interest for nothing. SHINZO: Horitani-san. At least allow us to open Hamlet tomorrow. HORITANI: No. Hamlet might be well received because of its novelty, but it'll never fill the house. Western drama will always flop in Japan. Tomorrow we'll present Chushingurajust as the sign outside says. Shinzo's Yuranosuke, Shicho's Okaru. KAN'YA: We've come so far with Hamlet, my very last dream for new theatre, for the Shintomi-za. Please let us present it. HORITANI: I take no risks. You always mess up somehow. Your Shin- tomi-za is a pyramid of debts. KAN'YA: Yes, but my debts produced plays ... ideas. KANADEHON HAMLET 225

HORITANI: New theatre can't be produced in so slapdash a fashion. Shinzo and Shich6 are under contract to me. I pay well. SHICHO: After HamletI return to Danjuro's troupe. It's settled. HORITANI: Hanjuro! I told you to negotiate with the actors before I came. HANJURO: (Speakingwith an Osakaaccent.) Sorry to have let you down. KAN'YA: (To Horitani.) You knew that tomorrow was Hamlet, not Chushingura.That's why you rushed to buy up the Shintomi-za. Hanjuro ratted. You traitor. HANJURO: Don't call me a traitor. After all, my career started in Osaka. KAN'YA: I should never have let an Osaka rat join my troupe. HANJURO: What's wrong with Osaka? Tokyo people always call us rats ... rats. KAN'YA: Don't use Osaka dialect with me. HANJURO: Why not? Chushingura originated in Osaka. It was written in Osaka, premiered as an Osaka puppet show. Act 4 is in nearby Kyoto where Okaru and Kampei live. Act 7 is in Kyoto; so is Act 9. Yuranosuke lives in Kyoto. Tokyo actors always mock me for my accent, saying they can't understand my lines as Kampei. But I'm from down there after all. HORITANI: Enough! HANJURO: I couldn't take any more. You treated me like an under- study. Just when I thought I was to play two handsome roles, Enya Hangan and Kampei in Chushingura,you made me one ghost in Hamlet. That's when Master Horitani approached me. KAN'YA: Kinokuni-ya, where are you going? GENNOSUKE: Back to my little Miyato-za on the wrong side of town. I have no place here. KAN'YA: No place for me either. Since 1661, after two hundred and forty years-twelve generations of Moritas-I now surrender my castle. (BecomesYURANOSUKE abandoning his castle in the fourth act of Chushingura.) "From generation to generation, world without end .. " TOME: Me too! "From generation to generation..." KAN'YA: After working day and night for years at the Shintomi-za, I now say "Farewell."Tome, thank you. You helped me much. SHINZO: Horitani-san ... and Waka-Horai. Thank you for offering me work, but I've decided to leave. I know where I belong. GENNOSUKE: Narita-ya, in my little Miyato-za? SHINZO: I might not play Hamlet there, but next time I play Chushin- gura, Yuranosuke will be totally different from before. After learn- ing Hamlet, I'll play a new Yuranosuke for true lovers of theatre. 226 Tsutsumi

FIGURE 12. "KAN'YA: No place for me either." Left to right: Umematsu (Haya- shi Akio), Kan'ya (Uchida Minoru), Tokujiro (Kubo Koichi), Shicho (Isogai Makoto), Gennosuke (Hayashi Tsuguki). KanadehonHamlet, 1997, Tokyo Gei- jutsu Gekijo.

GENNOSUKE: It's a crummy little dump in a park. SHINZO: No matter, just so long as I can play a new kind of theatre. I don't mind, little, old, new. Master Morita, when someday I play Hamlet, will you come? KAN'YA: Of course .. just to see a new kind of theatre. (See Color Plate 5.)

(KAN'YA crumbles to the ground. UMEMATSU supports him. KAN'YA rises to his feet.)

KAN YA: You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time-as this fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arrest-O, I could tell you- But let it be.

(As the clapperssound, KAN'YA imagines he hears the voices and applause of an audience. He acknowledgesthe applause, then collapses. UMEMATSU holds him up as the othersgather around.) KANADEHON HAMLET 227

TOME: Theatre master. KAN'YA: I am dead. The rest is silence. (Dies. SHINZO neatly arranges his body. The lights dim.) KIDO: Goodnight, Morita Kan'ya. May a dream of new drama lead you to peace above! (In English.) Goodnight, sweet prince. HORITANI: (Standing up left on the platform, where he dominates the scene.) Bear him to the stage; For he was likely, had he been put on, To have proved most capable Director of the National Theatre; and for his passage The music and the rites Speak loudly for him.

(Drums beat and wooden clappers sound while all the actors raise the body of KAN'YA and move to the front of the stage. Blackout.)

NOTES

1. The English translation of the play is based on the live simultane- ous translation provided by Faubion Bowers for the New York production. Stage directions were translated by David W. Griffith and Hori Mariko from the script of the play's first production. Additional stage directions, based on a videotape of a Tokyo performance, were added by the editor of Asian The- atreJournal. 2. RokumeikanIbun was awarded the Commissioner for Culture Prize for Dramatic Creation in 1988 and was produced in 1988 and 1990. Kanade- hon Hamletreceived the Yomiuri Prize in 1993. 3. Keene (1971), Dickens (1876), and Inoue (1910) are translations of the full puppet theatre text. Brandon (1982) contains a kabukiversion adapted by Nakamura Matagoro II and James R. Brandon. There are also selected kabuki-basedscenes in Richie and Watanabe (1963). 4. The play is inspired by Kawatake (1972), which provides a detailed analysis of Hamlet's first production in Japan. Ueno (1995) contains Mura- kami Takashi's chronological overview tracing the history of the reception of Hamletand Shakespeare in modern Japan. 5. Kimura (1943) is a detailed biography of Morita Kan'ya. 6. Bach (1995) discusses Kanya's reaction to the Meiji government's policy. 7. Kobitsu (1988) contains a detailed account of the play's production. Clark (1993) is a study based on the illustrations of the play. 8. Literary "new theatre,"Japanese modern drama, was established in the 1900s. It was strongly influenced by modern Western theatre and tried to differentiate itself from traditional theatre, especially kabuki. 228 Tsutsumi

9. GenrokuChushingura by Mayama Seika is an example of a shin kabuki-styleChushingura. 10. Shingeki Chushinguraby Fukuda Yoshiyuki was produced by the Haiyu-za. Inuno Adauchi, by Inoue Hisashi, was produced by the Komatsu-za. 11. As kabukiactors of the Edo period were considered too lowly to be allowed surnames, they used yago, a name often related to a place with which the family had a deep connection, or the name of an ancestor's occu- pation, and so on. The yago is often used as a nickname and, during the performance, is used by the audience as a word of encouragement shouted to the actor. In the translation, actors are often referred to by their yago. When this occurs, the actor's regular stage name is included in parentheses for clar- ity, but these interpolations are not meant to be spoken. 12. The Kimura-ya bakery innovated anpan, buns filled with sweet bean paste, and presented them to the Meiji emperor. The vendors-dressed in frock coats and top hats, beating on a Western drum-were very popular.

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Kobitsu Matso. 1988. Nihon ShingekiRinen Shi: Meiji ZenkiHen (A history of ideas of Shingeki: early Meiji). Tokyo: Hakusuisha. Matsuoka Kazuko. 1997. "Reviewof KanadehonHamlet by Tsutsumi Harue." (La MaMa E.T.C., New York.) Asahi Shinbun, March 13. Osasa Yoshio. 1985. Nihon GendaiEngeki Shi. Vol. 1: Meiji Taisho Hen (History of modern Japanese theatre. Vol. 1: Meiji and Taish6). Tokyo: Hakusuisha. .1997. "Reviewof KanadehonHamlet by Tsutsumi Harue." (La MaMa E.T.C., New York.) Mainichi Shinbun, March 18. Richie, Donald, and Miyoko Watanabe, trans. 1963. Six KabukiPlays. Tokyo: Hokuseido. Takahashi Yasunari. 1992. "Sheikusupia to Kyogen"(Shakespeare and kyogen). Gunzo (Septem- ber): 128-135. Ueno Yoshiko, ed. 1995. Hamlet andJapan. New York:AMS Press.